CARIBBEAN ROUND-UP
Trio of Bajan girls on indecency charge
BRIDGETOWN — Three Barbadian teenage girls appeared in court yesterday charged with exposing themselves in public at a so-called “skin-out” competition attended by hundreds of people, among them children.
Charged with unlawfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely exposing their persons at River Road in the parish of St Lucy on November 24, the trio, to reappear in court after the Christmas holidays, are:
RudieVanessa Cumberbatch, 17; Mashuana Alicia Thompson, 17; and Virginia Victoria Goddard, 19. They were released on bail in the sum of BDS$1,000 (US$500) each on Wednesday night with strict orders to appear in court yesterday.
The “skin-out” competition provoked cries of outrage over deteriorating morality among the nation’s young people, with criticisms also of adults who showed up for the competition with their small children to be exposed to the nudity of some of the teenage competitors.
News of the shocking public event first came in a special report by the Weekend Nation on December 6 which published details and photographs of the illegal activity.
Questions have been raised why it took the police more than three weeks to make arrests for offences committed at the shocking “skin-out” event.
President Chavez gets OAS backing
WASHINGTON — The Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States (OAS) has announced that it “fully supports the democratic and constitutional order (government) of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”, headed by President Hugo Chavez.
This development, which came in the form of a resolution on Monday night and was made public in a press statement yesterday, is viewed as a significant and timely morale boost for President Chavez who has been faced with enormous pressures from opposition forces to resign.
As the country’s vital oil industry remained largely paralysed by a strike linked to the anti-Chavez opposition, the OAS Permanent Council was declaring at its meeting its rejection of any attempt at a “coup d’etat or unconstitutional alteration of the Venezuelan constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order”.
The Permanent Council resolution called on all sectors of the society in Venezuela, including the Chavez administration and the opposition forces, to respect the principles enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter that requires respect for human rights, the rule of law, transparency and good governance.
Following approval of the resolution, Venezuela’s ambassador to the OAS, Jorge Valero, told the meeting that “this solid consensus we achieved tonight is a reaffirmation by the OAS of its commitment to democracy. It could also be said that it sent a clear signal to the entire Hemisphere that this Organisation, created specifically to defend democracies, is absolutely shouldering its responsibility in a transparent way”.
Meanwhile, United States ambassador to the OAS, Roger Noriega, has urged all sides to “act to defuse tension and seek a constructive solution to the ongoing unrest and violence”.
T&T banks rationing US dollars
PORT-OF-SPAIN — Commercial banks in Trinidad and Tobago are now rationing foreign exchange as the demand for US dollars has outstripped supply on the local market.
Customers wishing to purchase as little as US$500 were being told by some banks that there were restrictions on the amount they could get, according to a report in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper.
However, while some banks, among them First Caribbean, were limiting non-customers to no more than US$500, Republic Bank’s Promenade Centre was still willing to sell their regular customers up to US$3,000 and non-customers as much as US$500:
The Trinidad and Tobago Central Bank’s recommended selling rate for the US dollar has virtually stalled over the past two days, changing only by a fraction of a point, with the current rate being TT$6.2998 for US$1.
A similar shortage of US currency on the local market occurred earlier in the year and was attributed, according to the Guardian, to “seasonal travel and educational activity”.
President of the local Bankers Association, Richard Young said it was his understanding that the “tightness in the supply situation” was due to some capital market transactions.
Other bankers pointed to the demand for US dollars by nationals interested in investing in the newly created Sagicor Financial corporate interest and last Monday’s acquisition by Guardian Holdings of ING Fatum for some US$50 million and Angostura’s purchase of the outstanding shares of Scottish distiller Burn Stewart for 50 million pound sterling.